This Cheese Pie-Bar Cookie was turned into a Lime Cheesecake Bar with a few tweaks to the recipe.

Given that St. Patrick’s Day is right around the corner, it was appropriate to substitute the lemon peel for lime peel and to add green food coloring to the filling (2 drops). Instead of all white flour, I used part whole wheat and part Einkorn. The whole wheat gives a full body flavor to the crust. Baking with Einkorn can change the texture of baked goods but I haven’t found this significant. Einkorn is an unhybridized, ancient wheat. It has more of a nutty flavor compared to other flours.

I doubled the recipe and put the crust in a 9 x 13 inch pan. My crust turned out thicker than if I used two 9 x 9 inch pans. I also used 8 oz. of cream cheese instead of the doubled quantity of 6 oz. because I like cream cheese and wanted to use the whole brick.

These bars turned out fine. The filling formed up nicely after the bars cooled and were refrigerated. A nice thick crust is a good base to hold the filling for finger food. Next time, I would like to put in lime juice for extra flavor and forgo the crumble topping.

This treat would make a great summer, Fourth of July, or family reunion dessert.

Published by Greenwich House, Distributed by Crown Publishers, Inc., New York.

This is a rich yet easy to make dessert that will become a regular for your special occasions.

Have you ever had a potluck or gathering for which you wanted “just the right” recipe?

A bourbon cake dessert served by a dear friend met my recipe need. An email reply later I had the recipe and was gearing up to make “Julia’s Date Pudding.” Be sure to continue reading – this desert is worth it! While it is billed as a pudding, it is more like a very moist bar.

I have two warnings about this recipe. One: read the whole recipe through. It is easy to make but it takes time to let the dessert cool in the oven. Two: the recipe serves more than 12. This is a very rich dessert, and a 2 x 2” piece will satisfy the most ravenous sweet tooth. They can always have seconds, but you won’t want to waste any of this dessert.

This is a picture of the cake after we poured the sauce on it and you can see the “gloss” look it has. The sauce has soaked in quite a bit in the second picture.

Modifications we made include: substituting apricots for dates. We used a 12 ounce package. Using Fireball Whiskey instead of Bourbon. Note: one and a half ounces equals one jigger. We ended up using four ounces of Fireball. We used a total of 1 1/4 pecans but next time plan to use 1 1/2 cups total.

Christmas, New Year’s, or Fourth of July would be occasions to serve this treat. You’ll have to decide whether you like it best hot or cold. Feel free to share your thoughts through the comments posting.

A special thank you goes out to Marilyn, a true Kentucky Southern hostess, for sharing this dessert with me at her table and in writing.

Turning a traditional Shoo Fly Pie into bars, this recipe has 3 parts. Tasting Shoo Fly pie with “mile high” crumb topping was my inspiration to first learn to make this dessert.

What do you do when you promised to make your friend a pie and can’t find your rolling pin? You improvise. My husband came to the rescue with the blue vodka bottle you see in this picture with the Shoo Fly Pie bars.

Taking a traditional Shoo Fly Pie recipe, I turned it into bars by putting my homemade pie crust in a square pan. The blue vodka bottle worked great as a rolling pin and of course I washed it off before using it.

The green handled wire tool next to the bottle is a pastry blender. I highly recommend this tool if you want to make your own pie crust. It also comes in handy when mixing the crumb topping for this recipe. If you don’t have this tool, you can use a knife and fork to achieve the same results. You just keep pulling the knife back and forth through the fork in your crumb topping mixture until it is mixed to the desired fine crumb texture. You will need to unclump the mixture as it sticks to the knife and fork during this process so you can keep cutting the butter into the flour and sugar.

There are 3 parts to this recipe. The crust, the filling, and the crumbs. You will want to make the filling first so it can cool down before adding the beaten egg, but I’ll explain later.

Flour crust of your choice–You can make it or buy it. Grease your 9 x 9 baking pan (or use a round pie pan) and put your crust in the pan. Set aside for now.

Crumb Topping–1 1/2 cups flour, 1/4 cup butter, 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed. Note: make 2 batches of this crumb topping. One batch goes in the pie when you assemble it and the other goes on the pie once it has baked for 15 minutes. Blend ingredients together until they are a fine crumb mixture.

Assembling your Shoo Fly Pie/Bars:

First, add one beaten egg to the cooled molasses mixture. Stir in well.

Next, pour 1/3 of liquid into shell and sprinkle 1/3 of batch 1 crumbs on top. Repeat 2 more times ending with crumbs on top.

Bake at 375 degrees F for 45 minutes. After 15 minutes has passed, remove the pan from the oven and sprinkle on batch 2 of the crumbs. It will be piled high. Return to the oven and bake for the remainder of the time.

Near the end of the baking time, be sure to check with your nose and eyes if it is done a bit early. You don’t want it too brown on top or the start of a burned smell in your kitchen. Check that it is done with a toothpick inserted into the middle — should come out clean. Also, the sides of the bars should be slightly pulling away from the pan.

Shoo Fly Pie Bars have a historic base in the Pennsylvania Dutch Amish Community. I still remember enjoying a piece of Shoo Fly pie with “mile high” crumb topping in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It was my inspiration to learn to make this pie. What has inspired you to learn to bake a dessert?

Easy to make rhubarb cake and topping that will become a repeat favorite of yours.

Sharing this recipe brings back lots of memories. Memories of friends enjoying this dessert. Special memories of how I came across this recipe.

My Grandma Novella just had to have the new Saline County (Illinois) Homemakers Extension Association cookbook. Granny was so excited about this cookbook that both my sister and I purchased one while visiting. I have found many good recipes in this cookbook and find it is a go to resource when looking for a recipe to try. For historical reference, I have included a picture listing the association board members.

This page also gives you an idea where Saline County is located in beautiful Southern Illinois.

As promised in a previous post, I am sharing this recipe. It is super easy to make and rather than an icing has a topping. I hope you and yours will enjoy this as much as we have, and that this becomes a repeat favorite of yours. Folks who typically don’t like rhubarb will like this!

It is always a good idea to read a new recipe through all the way before making it. Follow the directions by mixing the starred ingredients first. For the buttermilk, I always make my own with 1 tablespoon lemon juice per cup of milk and let stirred mixture set 5 minutes. Note: this recipe calls for 2 cups of buttermilk. I also want to point out that this is a large recipe–use a large mixing bowl. Rather than using an 8×8 and 9×13 pan, I have used a large roasting pan to make one cake. You could choose to make whatever sizes of cakes you have pans for. While the cake is baking, I like to mix the topping so it is ready when I need it. Butter is not a listed ingredient, but you would have caught that when you read the recipe before making it. When you pull the cake from the oven and find it is done, gently and slowly rub the stick of butter across the top of the cake. Then, add your already prepared topping. This rhubarb cake is great warm or cold!

I had planned to make this cake and take a picture to show you, but I’m waiting for my rhubarb to grow back. We shared our rhubarb with my mother-in-law to make her rhubarb freezer jam. What is your favorite recipe using rhubarb?